AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND—“A year ago we were in a cell with only toilet paper and a blanket,” says Bram van der Kolk as midnight approaches at the Mega launch party.

But, oh, how times have changed. Now during its first 14 hours of operation, the new file sharing service has gained a claimed 500,000 sign-ups. Tonight, Vander der Kolk and fellow Megaupload coaccused Mathias Ortmann are running on adrenalin. Mega's programmer and chief technology officer say they have been awake for 40 hours straight.

Ortmann confides things might have been easier if Kim Dotcom had taken a low-key approach to publicity, allowing for a soft launch. Well, Kim is Kim. And so the new service has been inaccessible at times. “We’ve had to reboot the storage servers every hour,” Ortmann says. The pair work with Cogent’s German operation (where the site is hosted during its launch phase) on a solution.

But the man of the moment has disappeared into his mansion for a smaller celebration. “It’s his birthday in a few minutes,” Ortmann says. It was Kim’s birthday party a year ago that provided the FBI and NZ Police with the convenient opportunity to arrest Dotcom, fellow NZ resident Ortmann, van der Kolk, and Finn Batato in one place. This year, the preparations proceed without unforeseen interruption.

There’s lots of razzmatazz at the Mega launch party, with many flourishes of Dotcom-style goofiness and showmanship. During prelaunch drinks, guests are buzzed by a remote-controlled drone helicopter. During the presentation, they are buzzed by the real-thing as a helicopter lands and mock FBI agents rappel down the sides of Dotcom mansion.

The guest list

Everyone was in good cheer—except for head bodyguard Wayne Tempero.

Chris Keall

Even members of Dotcom’s security detail are in good cheer, bar the intense Wayne Tempero. While others mug for the camera during rehearsals, the head bodyguard stomps back to work. Tempero did not resist FBI agents or NZ Police during the January 20, 2012 raid, but he faces two firearms charges related to a gun found on property.

Guests included Tony Lentino, the hitherto-unknown tech entrepreneur who has been named Mega’s CEO and revealed as its largest outside investor. (The $NZ20 million annual revenue company he owns, Instra, is also contracted to supply billing and other technical services for Mega). The earthy, dressed-down Lentino drinks beer straight from the bottle. On Friday, Dotcom described him as a close friend long before the raid. He even revealed Lentino paid the rent on Dotcom Mansion— plus living expenses for Kim’s family—to the tune of around $250,000 before the German’s accounts were partially unfrozen.

Despite both being Web entrepreneurs, "We actually met offline, when Kim dragged one of his cars at my airstrip,” Lentino says. (Lentino's 1000-acre property in Wellsford, nor far from Dotcom Mansion, includes an airfield). Evidently, the pair bonded over their enthusiasm for fast cars.

Through interviews, and the event itself, there’s no doubt that Mega is an expression of Kim Dotcom’s vision of where the content industry is heading. The laid back Lentino has no problem with that. He says he’s the “administrative guy” and is happy with Dotcom being the ideas guy, plus the lightning rod for world attention.

Lentino poses with EuroDNS founder Xavier Buck (left).

Chris Keall

Although he’s had almost zero public profile, Lentino seems to be a prolific networker in the domain industry—he's the one who introduced Dotcom to EuroDNS founder Xavier Buck. Luxembourg-based EuroDNS has since become a technology partner to Mega, though Dotcom would not comment on whether EuroDNS was also the mystery Luxembourg investor in Mega. Buck said he felt immediate empathy with Dotcom, having tangled with law enforcement authorities himself in cyber-squatting cases brought by L'Oreal and Air France.

Prime seats were available to Robert Amsterdam (far right, pink shirt), the newest addition to the Dotcom legal team by way of the Washington, DC and London-based Amsterdam & Partners. Left to right: Lentino (standing), former Megaupload staffer Emmanuel Gadaix, Rothken, Ortmann, Van der Kolk, then Amsterdam.

Chris Keall

Also circling is the latest addition to Dotcom’s ever-expanding legal team: Robert Amsterdam of Washington, DC and London-based Amsterdam & Partners. The human rights lawyer says his key work has been in Venezuela, Russia, and Nigeria. Now he's contracted by Kim Dotcom to investigate a possible human rights angle on the Megaupload case—in particular whether one human, former Senator and current MPAA head Christopher Dodd, breached Dotcom’s rights by going out of his way to engineer what Amsterdam said could be seen as a “contract prosecution.”

Amsterdam agrees his work could help Dotcom seek redress from the US government down the track. But his immediate aim is to publicize Dodd’s role. “This prosecution should not be afforded the presumption of regularity," he says. "The way this was done—the helicopters; the rappelling down the buildings [of Dotcom mansion]; the over-reaction—all of these are signs of a classic political prosecution.”

Amsterdam will spend the next two days interviewing the Megaupload team as part of his preparations for a “white paper” he will publish in around two months’ time.

Fittingly, Auckland software developer Ben Gracewood was among the guests. Gracewood played an unwitting role in Dotcom’s rise as a cult hero in New Zealand and further afield, when he tweeted to the Megaupload team: “You guys just drive around in modified electric vehicles and pose for photos. I could live like that.” At the time, Kim replied he should come on over and bring friends. Gracewood did, and the resulting “Swim at Kim’s” became a surprise viral hit with world media, including love from The New York Times on July 3. It was the first time since his January 20 arrest that Dotcom engaged with the public. He's been on the front-foot in PR terms ever since.

Doctom's US lawyer Ira Rothken and his New Zealand lead, Paul Davison.

Chris Keall

Dotcom’s US lawyer Ira Rothken spent a long time chatting with his New Zealand lead, Paul Davison QC. Rothken says it is inevitable that Hollywood, music labels, and the DOJ (which has hinted at fresh charges if the Mega launch goes ahead) will come after the new service. He does, however, stop short of predicting a fresh wave of legal action.

“We fully expect them to say and do things that we believe at the end of the day will be inaccurate, and designed to embarrass, and designed to harass,” he says.

Doctom's wife Mona was also in attendance—it is the Dotcom mansion, after all (Emily Lentino, Tony's wife, pictured in the blue dress).

Chris Keall

Kim Dotcom’s wife Mona also took in the affair. As usual, she kept a low profile. But in commercial terms, she is the power behind the throne. Mona Dotcom owns 89.31 percent of Mega Ltd, according to NZ Companies Office records (the balance is owned by a company controlled by Lentino).

InternetNZ policy lead Susan Chalmers.

Chris Keall

The global Mega.co.nz gained its “.co.nz” domain (which usually designates a New Zealand company) after Gabon suspended the previous “Me.ga”, allegedly under US government pressure. If any such pressure exists, InternetNZ (which administers the .co.nz domain on behalf of ICAAN) is not showing it. Outgoing InternetNZ CEO Vikram Kumar has been an outspoken supporter of Dotcom, and InternetNZ policy lead Susan Chalmers attended the Mega launch party.

Mainstream record labels have been hostile to Dotcom, even pressuring a local media company to take Mega ads off air. But the party included a number of music personalities, including DJ Tim Phin and singer Tiki Taane. Still, overall, music industry figures were conspicuously absent.

Perhaps the next RSVP events?

Sure, a lot of interesting people attended. But the man we all came to see eventually took the stage.

Chris Keall

Onstage, Dotcom talked up two new services that will follow Mega in around six months time. First is Megabox, which will offer music, cutting in artists on profits. The second is Megakey, which will allow people to access that content for free if they earn credits by installing a plugin that substitutes ads served up by websites with those fed from the Mega network. (A service called "Megamovie" is also in the works, and will offer a similar setup for films.)

Offstage, Kim offered further details. All Megabox users will be given a dollop of free Megakey credit to hook people into the service. And for those who don’t want to use the ad-serving Megakey plugin, “You can choose to just straight-out buy the music that is on the [Megabox] site, just like you would on iTunes.”

But wait, won’t media sites be hostile to their own ads being blocked and replaced by those served by the Megakey browser plugin as a visitor seeks to build ad-viewing credits to ‘buy’ music from Dotcom?

“No.”

No?

“No. Here’s how we’ll do it at first,” Dotcom explains. “Only 10 percent of the ads you see will be ‘adjusted.’ This is not a general removal of ads. We’re not going to replace ads off small publishers, for example, or sites that have an Alexa rating below 100,” he pledges. “That is not our goal. We’ll be taking it [ad revenue] from the big guys, and giving it to the smaller artists.”

As they arrived, partygoers were offered champagne and Moa (a trendy craft beer), but also super-size cans of energy drinks.

Here's the Dotcom Mansion and the event stage, seen from the northern slopes of the grounds. The animal statues that dot the lawns are often seen as another sign of the entrepreneur's zany sense of humor, but they were actually installed by the mansion’s absentee owners, Richard and Ruth Bradley (who made their fortune selling Christmas hampers).

It's not everyday you get to experience a helicopter flying above your fancy pants mansion party.

Sure, some press got involved. But you'll see plenty of Mega heavy hitters were among the crowd.

Unsurprisingly, the placed filled up. The Mega launch was an in-demand scene.

Chris Keall

(From left to right): Ira Rothken, Bram van der Kolk, and Mathias Ortmann were among the day's most notable attendees.

Dotcom lawyer Ira Rothken and Mega CEO Tim Lentino get cozy on the stage—must be due to the added security of miniskirted guards behind them. It was a scene—read the full recap here.

A telling face in the crowd: Emmanuel Gadaix (sitting middle between Buck and Lentino). He was the director of Megapay—the division of Megaupload that processed mobile payments with big telcos worldwide, allowing people to buy a premium membership by having it charged to their phone bill.
Mega co-founder Finn Batato describes front-row guest Gadaix as a "stand-by employee." He hoped a similar mobile payment service would be developed for Mega in the medium term, "But obviously we need to get all our issues sorted and re-organize everything first [overloading and server balancing issues continued on the service's second day]. We need financial stability before we can hire staff."

Kim has already done a great job with pricing. 50GB Free, Pro I account with 500GB of storage for €9.99 ($13.30) per month, Pro II with 2TB of storage for €19.99 ($26.63) per month & Pro III with upto 4TB of storage for €29.99 ($39.95) per month is outstanding pricing strategy.

Once things settle down ( their server is simply overloaded at the moment ); I would love to see a cloud storage comparison in Ars between Dropbox, Google Drive and Skydrive with MEGA.

I also hope that the MEGA team comes up with their iOS and Android apps as soon as possible and create a seamless integration experience that Dropbox has so efficiently created for all of it's users. That would create further competition in the market and these services would have to up the ante. And competition is always good.

Apparently at least half a million people so far? That was the second paragraph of the article, if you got that far. In court proceedings it was claimed Megaupload had over 100 million users, which certainly seems to meet any reasonable criteria of significance. What exactly is your standard?

Quote:

I haven't read this guy's name anywhere except Ars

Maybe you just don't read much. It's front page on major sites like Forbes (currently the most read article for that matter). I don't personally think it's as interesting as a lot of other news, but neither is it unimportant.

Quote:

where he appears to merit a news section all his own.

Are you suggesting that during an event of note there might actually be more news then the average about said event? Like if a consumer electronics association had some event someday, or if Intel or Microsoft or Apple had some developer conference, or perhaps launched a product, it might generate more then a single article on the subject? Whoa, no way has that ever happened before.

Quote:

Can we stop feeding this guy's need for PR at some point?

The Ars web team really needs to do something about that feature they must have added that forces people to read articles they aren't interested in. I've never seen that feature myself, but based on the whining in the comments surely it must exist.

The other services (music, movie) sound like relatively good ideas. Essentially taking ad revenue from websites that depend on it could potentially lead to a lot of resentment from the community that is currently largely in support of his endeavors. 10% is a lot for even a relatively large website like ARS - it could potentially lead to pay-cuts or firing staff members if the ad swapping deal became wide spread. That is not something I would ever like to see!

Otherwise, very interested in seeing how the next year pans out for Dotcom and MEGA. There is a lot of excellent policy debate that should be sparked by his new company and I look forward to it.

Maybe you just don't read much. It's front page on major sites like Forbes (currently the most read article for that matter). I don't personally think it's as interesting as a lot of other news, but neither is it unimportant.

The Forbes article is titled "Is Kim Dotcom's MEGA Just For Pirates, Or Do We All Need A Privacy Company?" That's in stark contrast to Ars' one-sided coverage.

KD will manage to alienate two major industries now: the mpaa and riaa, and soon to be the advertising industry. Both have lots of bucks and I imagine can simply bleed him dry with law suits. But then again, it has to take off for it to go that far. The plugin-in feature doesn't very private to me.

To be honest,I agree with durindana that Ars and the other similar sites should tone down the coverage of the new service somewhat... Not because I mind the coverage,but because the continuous influx of users is playing merry hell with my upload speeds (and 40 KB/s upload speed means that mirroring my Win8 custom refresh image and assorted hobby stuff(CM10 stuff/A couple of 'buntu distros/Arduino projects) takes ages. As soon as they're up - by all means,continue with the adverts

Fantastic service at fantastic prices, can't wait for it to settle down and give them our money!The 4TB option sounds the best, can retire some of our raid drives and use the space for other stuff keeping a backup in the cloud.

On another note, the astroturfing / trolling / shilling has gotten to an insane amount on these KD articles... kindly do something about it Ars, like if a comment gets downvoted a lot just remove it from the first page.I can understand the MAFIAA industries being ridden with fear but I would rather not see them whining on the first page of comments.

Something tells me the reason he got so many customers so fast is because they were all former LIFETIME MEGAUPLOAD MEMBERS, and registering for Mega would be the first logical step in trying to contact him for a $199 refund. Duhr!

I'm not sure if you'll have a case,because it's not like KD took down his own site voluntarily - in fact (from what I've read so far on Ars and other tech websites) he's still fighting tooth and nail to get the service back up. Secondly,I wouldn't be surprised that somewhere in the fine print there's a clause that defines the 'lifetime membership' as 'as long as the service exists' or some variation thereof.

MAFIAAfire wrote:

Fantastic service at fantastic prices, can't wait for it to settle down and give them our money!The 4TB option sounds the best, can retire some of our raid drives and use the space for other stuff keeping a backup in the cloud.

Yeah,the 4TB does look interesting and I'm rather tempted to subscribe to it in a couple of weeks,so I can offload all system-drive images I've accumulated from friends-and-family IT(I really should find a loophole that saves me from this unwanted gig) + as many image backups I can from my game collection from my active drives. Given the possibility that someone might try and sue Mega out of existence,I'll keep the files on some of my inactive drives+optical media.

Yeah,the 4TB does look interesting and I'm rather tempted to subscribe to it in a couple of weeks,so I can offload all system-drive images I've accumulated from friends-and-family IT(I really should find a loophole that saves me from this unwanted gig)

Ha! Same boat as you! While the other people at Mafiaafire are savvy enough to do their own goddamn backups friends and family really use me, tell me if you find that damn loophole Should never have shown them how Macrium "magically" gets their computer back to a saved state in 45 minutes and instead preached more "dont download files from the internet that can contain malware". Oh well, that boat has sailed... now to use Kimmie's Mega to upload all those damn images and get my RAID 1 drives into RAID 0 or RAID 5.

Heck, I could even salvage some of my old computers for parts to make a "new" computer, put one of the drives in there and sell it second hand to get some of my $$ back!

Piss and moan all you want about Dotcom and his dirtball status he is the ONLY SOB that hasn't tucked tail and ran or bent over to give a better angle on the buggering they intend to give him.

Name one other outfit that has said EFF U and stood ground. I'll wait. Don't say Google either those SOB's pretty much handed MPAA RIAA the keys to youtube and said take what you want.

Money motivates and Dotcom is very freakin' motivated to keep making it. Who cares if it's a selfish desire to make bank at this point? Nobody has seriously stood up and said screw you we are legal and you're going to have to actually fight this time. It doesn't matter how legal or right or any other technical BS crapola if there is no precedent set. The buttholes will just keep threatening and bullying legit services out of business.

He can pimp his brand as hard as he likes so long as he takes this all the way to the end. We are going to be doing this dumb copying is not stealing sharing is not theft dance for freaking ever otherwise.

Loving the fact he's bringing attention to modern civil rights issues and the fact that some places like Canada and New Zealand still hold true to the rule of law....

Actually, it's the US DoJ that invited scrutiny by overreaching. Canada's justice industry has been jizzed over a few times before so, you know, fool me once...

I expect a few terrorists plot files will end up on MEGA's servers in no time flat. What better way to address Dotcom's doubledare than to invoke the T-word ? No pesky HabeasCorpus rules in natsec cases. I mean, KD is really pushing it now.

At least I found a use for all the popcorn left over from the Carreon debacle.

How come there are no news stories about former Megaupload Lifetime members trying to get their money back? Isnt some law firm gonna try and file a suit against this guy? I'm still alive!

File suit against the US government. They took your files, not Kim.

I dont believe i mentioned anything about files. I believe i was inquiring about my $199. I could be wrong. Let me check. Nope . I was right. I actually read what I typed. moron

Bitching about not having your money back when MU is still in active litigation is the mark of a moron. You can't get what they don't yet have.

You know what happens if you file a suit against MU right now? They say "we can't do shit until the MU case is settled". There may not be shit to get and it's unlikely you are going to want to spend 50-60$ k to get jack squat of your $199 back.

If you pull your thumb out of your hind end and do your own work you would see LAWYERS who used mega's services are planning to sue...wait for it...the US government. There was also a group planning to sue the FBI. I'm not sure of the status of that honestly. All the lawsuits so far have been over files. You know why? BECAUSE THE MU CASE HASN'T BEEN DECIDED. Is MU going to be back up? Maybe. Can't say, they are still in litigation.

So, you can't get your lifetime $$$$ back until Mega officially and legally bites the big one. You can bitch about files like everybody else, but you can't get money for something that hasn't happened. You have to wait for mega to DIE or resurrect before you can do a damn thing. This is also why he can't compensate you on the new site. MU is MU and EVERYTHING with MU is frozen until this stupid shit is settled. Even Dotcom can't say screw it, MU is done, because he can't close or end what he doesn't have.

You see the theme here? Come back and bitch when MU is dead and you don't have your $199 until then, much like everybody else and Dotcom himself you just have to suck it until this crap is settled in one direction or the other. I would not expect that to occur anytime soon.

If you paid on a credit card, you may be able to get something back that way. Basically, and I do feel for you, you are effed in the a right now.

The fact that he HAS started over is a good sign for you honestly. You may at least get something back in the form of membership at the new site if MU never goes live again (though honestly I wouldn't blame you for telling him to cram that with walnuts) He is also going to be more likely to make shit right to keep his current endeavor bringing in cash.

If you do decide to fork over large sums of money to sue MU I'm sure ars would give you a nice big spread here...

So yeah the tl;dr version:

You aren't dead, and neither is Mega. Welcome to the crap end of the stick. Sucks to be us.

For the lifetime MU members (including me), Kim Dotcom said he's already doing what he can to get MU user data from the courts so he can compensate you. He hasn't said how that would translate (and no one asked during the event like I was hoping). But provided he gets that data, something is coming our way. He's also doing what he can to transfer MU files to MEGA.

Anyone posting anything negative at all about this gets mega-downvotes, even when they're contributing a valid concern.

That's a bit disturbing.

Ars commenters used to be up in arms about Kim and his antics. Suddenly there's a huge surge of folks supporting Kim (during a product kick-off, no less), and trying to squash all nay-sayers. That either screams "sock puppet army" or ... I don't know. I thought the Ars crowd was more open-minded; willing to listen to other peoples' opinions w/o getting so easily offended.

Anyone posting anything negative at all about this gets mega-downvotes, even when they're contributing a valid concern.

That's a bit disturbing.

Ars commenters used to be up in arms about Kim and his antics. Suddenly there's a huge surge of folks supporting Kim (during a product kick-off, no less), and trying to squash all nay-sayers. That either screams "sock puppet army" or ... I don't know. I thought the Ars crowd was more open-minded; willing to listen to other peoples' opinions w/o getting so easily offended.

Facts and rational thought have no home at Ars anymore.

Either say something to appease the mob or shut up like the rest of us.

Anyone posting anything negative at all about this gets mega-downvotes, even when they're contributing a valid concern.

That's a bit disturbing.

Ars commenters used to be up in arms about Kim and his antics. Suddenly there's a huge surge of folks supporting Kim (during a product kick-off, no less), and trying to squash all nay-sayers. That either screams "sock puppet army" or ... I don't know. I thought the Ars crowd was more open-minded; willing to listen to other peoples' opinions w/o getting so easily offended.

Facts and rational thought have no home at Ars anymore.

Either say something to appease the mob or shut up like the rest of us.

Looking back at previous posts voted down, the reasons seem to be more basic. Posts with ad-hominem insults invite a quick downvote. This seems to include posts with unsupported insults directed at third persons, or unsupported negative categorizations, such as your unsupported generalization that Ars readers no longer tolerate rational thought.

These negative personal attacks contribute nothing to the discussion. They tend to derail it if pursued. Hence, most of the downvotes.